Adrift
by Lostinfic
Summary: He doesn't know anyone else like her and sometimes that's exactly what he needs. When the Latimer case begins, Hannah is there for him.


Admittedly, it's unusual for a detective to be friends with a prostitute— if they can call what they have a friendship.

He met Hannah a few years ago when he was leading an investigation on a London DS. Harry Keegan was suspected of various illegal activities. As is the law for this kind of investigation, another police department was put in charge, and since Hardy's neck of the wood was rather calm, it had landed on his desk.

To say he got to know her personally would be far-stretched but there was a certain conviviality to their meetings.

Her beauty stood out against the drab walls of the police station and he was delighted to find out that her wit matched her charm. It had made the whole ordeal much more bearable.

He can't fathom why she took a liking to him, but she did. Maybe it's because she wasn't in a good place when they met, there was no one else she could talk to about what had happened with Harry.

Honesty, that's what they both needed.

He wasn't in a good place either at that moment. Being a cuckold was wearing him down.

Yet nothing happened, he still believed in virtue back then. She was just a fantasy, an elaborate and persistent fantasy.

He can't explain why he gave her his personal phone number. Something in the way she had lingered on in his office on that last day had made him bold. Her hands had slowly slid down the sleeves of his jacket and brushed against his knuckles. He had wanted to feel her gasp against his mouth.

So it's a peculiar relationship theirs, on and off, they should have lost track of each other long ago.

They can go months without any contact whatsoever and then one of them will call. They'll talk or meet up for a pint. There will be no awkwardness, no dancing around, just an honest conversation and a good laugh.

And every once in a while, his phone rings and he just knows it's her, something in the colour of the sky, a greyish shade of lavender that makes her melancholy.

And then there are days, autumn days that smell like spring and remind him of preschool, days when his hand fits in hers and the stubble on his chin catches in the stitches of her scarf.

And summer days when he does anything she asks, when he's anyone she needs, because she outshines the weather.

And there are nights, when the moon pulls at their blood and the drift of his fingers through her hair is the only thing that soothes them. Nights when the ebb and flow of her hips atones his rage.

He doesn't know anyone else like her. Not in an extraordinary sort of way, she's just different from his friends and family, the way she thinks, the way she behaves, the way she accepts who he is. Which makes her exactly the kind of person he needs sometimes. Exactly the kind of person he needs today, because no one answered his prayer when he asked "don't do this to me" on the beach this morning.

He thinks about calling her when he goes back to The Traders to change his suit, but he doesn't want to burden her. Yet he's not so surprised when he feels his mobile vibrate against his chest shortly after he's left the press conference at the school.

"I just saw you on the news," she says, "how you holding up?"

"Urgh."

"That bad?" she asks with a soft chuckle he can't reciprocate. "Would you like me to come to Broadchurch next weekend?"

"I'll be working, I don't— actually, I'd really like that."

"Would you like me to come sooner? I can be there tomorrow."

Twenty-four hours have never seemed so long.

Because of Mark Latimer, he's late to pick her up at the train station. He knows she's somber when she doesn't tease him about it. She drops her bag and opens her arms, and he holds back because they're in public.

Once they're in the privacy of his room, no words are necessary. She nudges her knee between his legs and he breathes in her peachy fragrance.

It's enough for now.

Life might not be so unfair after all.

Maybe her lips on his outweigh the bad things in this world. Maybe the warm skin under her breasts on his fingertips restores some sort of cosmic balance.

It all becomes meaningless when her moans are all he can hear, when her taste seeps in his lungs, when glossy shades of pink fill his vision.

And then there's that bliss, when he's in her and she urges him to go deeper, a bliss that temporarily erases any wrongs.

Sure enough it all comes back the moment the sun filters through his eyelids, but her hair is still soft against his neck and there are traces of hope in her smile, so he'll be able to get through the day.


End file.
